I read on Steam’s website that one of the new features of the Deck OLED was waking the Deck via a bluetooth controller. I was trying it out with my Steam Controller that has already been paired by putting the Deck to sleep while it was docked (which shut off my Steam Controller automatically) then waiting a few seconds (like 15), then powering the Steam Controller back on. The Steam button on the controller flashed for a while like it was looking for something to connect to, then it shut off and the Deck did not wake up.
Is there a setting for either the Deck or the controller that enables wake via Bluetooth or is the Steam Controller just old enough that it won’t work? Or do I need to update the controller firmware?
Any guidance here would be appreciated.
I’m not sure if it’s the same with a Steam Controller, but for Xbox controllers, you have to ‘forget’ your controller in Bluetooth settings then reconnect it every time you restart the console to get wake on Bluetooth to work. An annoyance, certainly, but you shouldn’t have to restart your console very often, except for OS updates.
Or you can switch your SteamOS branch from Stable to Beta. That bug is fixed in the Beta branch.
Wake from Bluetooth is only supported with some controller types, and not others. I don’t know if the steam controller will do it or not.
I’d say with how old it is probably not.
How do you know this? Is there a list of supported devices somewhere? I’m struggling to find it on Valve’s website.
I haven’t seen a list of devices, but some Bluetooth controllers can wake it up and others won’t. My stadia Bluetooth controllers won’t do it, but Xbox controllers will.
Might have to do with a specific Bluetooth protocol.
Also I dug out my old Steam Controller, updated the firmware on it (to add BLE), paired it, and it did wake up my deck. However it didn’t actually work as a controller until after I rebooted the deck, after which it would work as a controller but no longer wake the deck up. I need to repair it and try again, but I didn’t have time to finish testing it.
I think I need to update the firmware on mine. I was disappointed to see there was no option in the controller settings of the Deck even when I plugged it in using a micro USB cable through my dock.
I think the firmware update was only available through the old big picture mode, and is no longer available through steam UI.
Searching online brought up this reddit post which included this zip file as the legacy way to update the Steam Controller firmware today.
You’re the best. You didn’t need to dig this up but this 100% solved my problem.
I used my desktop and micro-USB cable to update the SController firmware, re-paired to the Deck using the Steam+B pairing mode, and now it wakes the Deck from sleep.
Thank you so much!
Glad it helped!
Raging that I can’t wake the v1 deck from a controller. Also can’t do wake on LAN with the official dock (but jsaux ones work).
It’s not ideal, but a work around is to make sure the bios option for wake on charge is turned on, and then use a smart plug (controlled by your phone) to turn the dock charger off and back on to wake up the deck.
Ooh, that’s a nice idea and will work with Home Assistant. Will try, thanks!
Where I live there are so many wifi networks that wireless controllers have a lot of interference and don’t work too well. I commonly just use a cable and hit the power button on my deck myself and it feels like I’m back in the early 2000’s playing on the OG Xbox that I always wished I had lol
